Arsenal Secures Victory Over Sunderland with Guimaraes and Raya
Arsenal’s perfect title defence rolled on with a flash of brilliance from Bruno Guimaraes and the safe hands of David Raya, as Mikel Arteta’s side beat Sunderland 2-0 and quietly opened up early daylight at the top of the Premier League.
Four games, four wins, four statements.
Guimaraes stuns Sunderland, Raya stands tall
At the Stadium of Light, Arsenal had to work for it. Sunderland pushed, the crowd snarled, and when Enzo Le Fée stepped up to the spot, the champions looked briefly vulnerable.
Raya shut it all down. His penalty save kept the game level and shifted the mood in an instant.
Just over two minutes later, Guimaraes ripped the contest away from the hosts. His first Arsenal goal was worth the wait – a long-range rocket that arrowed into the top corner and silenced the stadium in one brutal, beautiful moment.
Sunderland never really recovered. Arsenal controlled the tempo, leaned on their structure and waited for the final punch.
It came with the last kick. Bukayo Saka buried a stoppage-time penalty to seal the points and a fourth straight win, pushing Arsenal three clear of Manchester City and already nudging the rest of the supposed contenders into the rear-view mirror.
City can haul themselves level if they win the Manchester derby at Old Trafford on Sunday. For now, though, the champions have set the pace – and the standard.
Alonso’s Chelsea thrill and frustrate again
At Stamford Bridge, Chelsea delivered the same chaotic cocktail Xabi Alonso has served since walking through the door: dazzling going forward, fragile at the back.
Hull, newly promoted and still riding the wave, arrived as the last team in the division yet to concede. That record vanished inside seven minutes when Morgan Rogers drilled in at the near post, finishing off bright early work from Chelsea’s front line of Rogers, Joao Pedro and Cole Palmer.
The tone was set. Goals were coming.
The problem, again, was Chelsea’s defending. Mohamed Belloumi pounced on slackness at the back and struck twice before the break, punishing a side that still can’t shut the door when the momentum turns against them.
Alonso’s numbers tell the story. In five games against top-flight opposition, Chelsea have scored 16 and conceded 12. Chaos, every week.
“(It’s) maybe entertaining, but I hope one day you’ll say it was a boring game and we win and we don’t give these entertaining moments,” the Chelsea boss admitted, after dropping more points and slipping five off the top.
Joao Pedro at least salvaged something, thundering a Palmer cross into the top corner just after the hour to make it 2-2. Chelsea pressed, probed, and pushed Hull back, but the winner never came.
Hull walked away unbeaten, still third, their Premier League return feeling less like survival mode and more like an extended honeymoon.
Liverpool stall as Fulham dig in for Arbeloa
At Anfield, the mood was very different. Liverpool remain unbeaten under Andoni Iraola, but a goalless draw with struggling Fulham drew boos from the home crowd and handed Alvaro Arbeloa his first Premier League point.
On paper, Liverpool’s front line should have overwhelmed a leaky Fulham defence. Three £100 million forwards – Bradley Barcola, Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak – started together. They never quite connected.
The energy just wasn’t there. Iraola pointed to midweek exertions in the Champions League against Atletico Madrid, and it showed in a flat, predictable performance.
“When you draw, especially at home, you can't be happy,” he said. “Today we lacked a bit of freshness and we did not do enough offensively to make the difference.”
Liverpool sit sixth, already six points behind Arsenal. The season is young, but the gap is real.
Tottenham still waiting for a goal
Across London, the tension is different but just as sharp. Tottenham’s £300 million outlay was supposed to erase memories of back-to-back 17th-place finishes and drag the club away from the relegation conversation.
Instead, the same question keeps echoing around their season: when will they score?
A stalemate with Everton extended their wait for a first league goal of the campaign. The spending has not yet translated into fluency, and the table is unforgiving – Spurs sit just inside the drop zone, their big summer still waiting for a spark.
Delap answers Forest doubts, Villa and Palace suffer
Aston Villa are stuck alongside them in the bottom three, their own troubles compounded by late heartbreak against Nottingham Forest.
Forest, still smarting from last season’s Europa League semifinal defeat to Villa, found their payback late. The focus beforehand sat on Liam Delap and the club-record £45 million fee reportedly paid to Chelsea for a striker who never made the grade at Stamford Bridge.
Those doubts didn’t last long. Delap justified the outlay with a crisp long-range strike into the bottom corner to open the scoring and tilt the game Forest’s way.
Villa finally found a league goal of their own through Alysson, levelling to offer a brief sense of relief. It didn’t last. Igor Jesus struck to seal Oliver Glasner’s first win as Forest boss and keep Villa mired in early-season trouble.
Glasner’s former club Crystal Palace fared no better. Their poor start continued with a 3-2 home defeat to Ipswich, a wild contest shaped by Axel Disasi’s first-half red card. Reduced to 10 men, Palace were always vulnerable, and Zian Flemming made them pay deep into stoppage time, his first goal for the Tractor Boys snatching all three points.
Schade keeps Brentford unbeaten
On the south coast, Brentford quietly kept their own unbeaten run alive. Kevin Schade struck twice in a 2-2 draw at Bournemouth, underlining his growing influence and ensuring Thomas Frank’s side remain one of the division’s awkward, immovable obstacles.
Early days, yes. But as Arsenal streak clear, Chelsea entertain and unravel, Liverpool stall, and Tottenham stare anxiously at the bottom, the shape of this season is already starting to twist into something intriguing.
